Small Press Finalist #16 - Fractured Myths

FRACTURED MYTHS
YA Contemporary Arthurian Fantasy
84,000 words.

QUERY:

When sixteen-year-old fantasy enthusiast Alanna O’Connor sees Vikings, medieval knights, and mythological creatures appear in her hometown of Edinburgh, she thinks it’s a miracle . . . until they try to kill her.

At that moment, she no longer cares about her cancelled birthday plans, her latest tattoo, or even the charming teenage boy she met earlier. All her drama is cast aside as she fights for her life and sanity.
Alanna realizes that when she climbed the legendary mountaintop called Arthur’s Seat, she unwittingly opened the long dormant portal to Otherworld and unleashed the rampaging monsters. Terrified and plagued by guilt over the ensuing slaughter, she teams up with the one person she knows she can trust: the newly arrived and completely baffled King Arthur.

As they battle centaurs, goblins, and a dragon from Loch Ness, Alanna confronts the truth about what happened to King Arthur and the other characters while they were in Otherworld. Arthur has splintered memories from his legendary life that do not fit together into a single lifetime. He is a fictional version of himself and is as lost as anyone—a fractured myth who needs Alanna’s guidance as much as she needs his expertise. Alanna must put the pieces together and close the passageway between worlds before it is made permanent and Scotland—if not all reality—is fractured beyond repair.

FIRST 150 WORDS:

Alanna O’Connor spun around, her long auburn hair taking sudden flight, and planted her thin palm against the castle’s sandstone wall, blocking Zoë’s path.

The tourists walking behind them were unprepared for the jolting halt. They bumped each other, shifting uncertainly, until a frustrated young boy stepped out of line and circumnavigated the strange pair, creating a new path for the others. Given the wide breadth underneath the massive stone arch, Alanna thought his glaring condemnation seemed excessive—a snarled brow that screamed, Out of the way!
You shouldn’t even be here!
           
But Alanna had good reason for her abrupt stop, and if she belonged anywhere, she felt certain it was at Edinburgh Castle.
           
“Wait a bloody second,” she told Zoë, ignoring the disgruntled pedestrians. Alanna leaned in, taking advantage of her position slightly uphill. “You mean you got zapped by lightning doing this? As in, you were setting up this same contraption we’re working with right now, then Boom—God went Old Testament on you?”